Hierarchical namespace service with distributed name resolution caching and synchronization

ABSTRACT

A service enables a command that refers to a file system object using a hierarchical namespace identifier to be executed against the file system object in a flat namespace. The service selectively distributes the command to one of a plurality of name resolution nodes based on a directory name included in the hierarchical namespace identifier. The identified node resolves the directory name to a flat namespace identifier that is used to execute the command against the flat namespace. After communicating with at least one storage node to resolve a directory name, each name resolution node stores a mapping of the directory name to the corresponding flat namespace identifier in a cache, so that subsequent resolutions of that directory name may be performed more efficiently. Cache entries may be invalidated when an operation occurs that impacts the relevant mapping and/or based on system considerations such as cache expiry.

BACKGROUND

Cloud storage is a model of data storage in which digital data is stored in logical pools of storage embodied in physical storage devices hosted by a cloud storage provider. A cloud storage system may include a networked set of computing resources, including storage devices, servers, routers, etc., that are configurable, shareable, provide data security, and provide access to cloud storage to user devices over the Internet. A cloud storage system provides users the ability to store very large amounts of data for essentially any duration of time. Cloud storage system customers have access to their data from anywhere, at any time, and pay for what they use and store. Data stored in cloud storage may be durably stored using both local and geographic replication to facilitate disaster recovery.

Some cloud storage systems store file system objects in a flat global namespace. However, many big data and data analytics applications are designed to store data in a hierarchical namespace. For example, many big data and data analytics applications are configured to work with the Apache™ Hadoop® Distributed File System (HDFS). The HDFS design is based on requirements for a POSIX filesystem, but in a few key areas the POSIX semantics has been traded to increase data throughput rates. The POSIX namespace is a hierarchical namespace with unlimited depth of nesting and atomic operations over the namespace.

BRIEF SUMMARY

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

Systems, methods and computer program products are described herein for providing a hierarchical namespace service. The hierarchical namespace service enables a command that refers to a file system object using a hierarchical namespace identifier to be executed against the file system object in a flat namespace. The hierarchical namespace service selectively distributes the command to one of a plurality of name resolution nodes based on a directory name included in the hierarchical namespace identifier. The identified name resolution node resolves the directory name to a flat namespace identifier that is used to execute the command against the flat namespace. After communicating with at least one storage node to resolve a directory name, each name resolution node stores a mapping of the directory name to the corresponding flat namespace identifier in a cache, so that subsequent resolutions of that directory name may be performed more efficiently. Cache entries may be invalidated when an operation occurs that impacts the relevant mapping and/or based on system considerations such as cache expiry.

A hierarchical namespace service in accordance with an embodiment may include any number of name resolution nodes and associated caches for resolving a directory name. As one or more of these name resolution nodes become busy, commands that refer to the directory name can be directed to other ones of the name resolution nodes for that directory. This horizontal scalability can be used to improve the efficiency of the name resolution function when such name resolution nodes become busy. For example, in an embodiment, the number of name resolution nodes assigned to a particular directory may be increased or reduced dynamically and adaptively based on how many file operations are occurring in association with the directory. In this manner, a relatively large number of name resolution nodes and associated caches may be assigned to a directory that is relatively active, whereas a relatively small number (e.g., 1) may be assigned to a directory that is not.

In a further embodiment, a name resolution node that stores a mapping of a directory name to a flat namespace identifier in its cache registers with at least one storage node that manages the directory identified by the directory name. When an operation occurs that impacts the mapping, the at least one storage node sends a notification to the registered name resolution node so that the name resolution node can invalidate the cache entry that includes the mapping, thereby ensuring consistency.

In further accordance with this embodiment, the at least one storage node may only honor the registration for a predetermined time period, such that no notifications will be sent after the end of the predetermined time period. The expiration of inactive cache entries at the name resolution node may be set to occur on or before the end of the same predetermined time period. This has the effect of ensuring that cache entries are invalidated when there is no notification mechanism in place to ensure that they are valid. This approach also provides for increased efficiency since entries in a name resolution cache may expire naturally because they are not read for some time. After this point, in accordance with the foregoing approach there is no need to send notifications. Thus, this approach reduces the amount of inter-node messaging that must occur. Even in the case where a cache entry must be explicitly invalidated, only the name resolution node(s) that manage such a cache entry need be notified.

Further features and advantages of the systems and methods, as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments, are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It is noted that the methods and systems are not limited to the specific embodiments described herein. Such embodiments are presented herein for illustrative purposes only. Additional embodiments will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art(s) based on the teachings contained herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS/FIGURES

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form a part of the specification, illustrate the present methods and systems and, together with the description, further serve to explain the principles of the methods and systems and to enable a person skilled in the pertinent art to make and use the methods and systems.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a system that uses a hierarchical namespace service in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a system that includes multiple instances of a hierarchical namespace service that enables file system commands that reference hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects to be applied to the file system objects in a flat namespace storage system, in accordance with example embodiments.

FIG. 3 shows an example of paths and files in a hierarchical directory structure, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 4 shows hierarchical namespace topology corresponding to the hierarchical directory structure of FIG. 3, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 5 shows the hierarchical namespace topology of FIG. 4 with path and file names of FIG. 3 overlaid, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 6 shows a block diagram of an example architecture for implementing a hierarchical namespace service, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 7 shows an example master directory block table, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 8 shows a block diagram of a hierarchical namespace service that includes physical nodes and virtual nodes, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of a process for a namespace mapping system to map commands from a hierarchical namespace to a flat file structure, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 10 shows a block diagram of a virtual node, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 11 shows a block diagram of the hierarchical namespace service of FIG. 8, where virtual nodes forward a command to a virtual node that manages an entity block identified in the command, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of a process for a virtual node to forward a received command to another virtual node for name resolution, in accordance with another example embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart of a process for a virtual node to perform name resolution on a command to identify and forward the command to another virtual node that manages an entity block identified in the command, in accordance with another example embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart of a process for a virtual node to execute a received command with regard to an entity block identified in the command, in accordance with another example embodiment.

FIG. 15 shows a block diagram of an example name resolution node, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 16 is a flowchart of a process by which a name resolution node resolves a directory name included in a hierarchical namespace identifier of a file system object to a flat namespace identifier, so that a command that includes the hierarchical namespace identifier can be forwarded to an appropriate storage node for execution against the flat namespace, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 17 is a flowchart of a process for determining if a directory name is stored in an entry in a name resolution cache, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 18 is a flowchart of a registration process for ensuring that entries in a name resolution cache are invalidated when directory names included in those entries are changed, in accordance with an example embodiment.

FIG. 19 depicts an example processor-based computer system that may be used to implement various embodiments described herein.

The features and advantages of the embodiments described herein will become more apparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings, in which like reference characters identify corresponding elements throughout. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION I. Introduction

The present specification and accompanying drawings disclose one or more embodiments that incorporate the features of the present methods and systems. The scope of the present methods and systems is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. The disclosed embodiments merely exemplify the present methods and systems, and modified versions of the disclosed embodiments are also encompassed by the present methods and systems. Embodiments of the present methods and systems are defined by the claims appended hereto.

References in the specification to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “an example embodiment,” etc., indicate that the embodiment described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarily include the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodiments whether or not explicitly described.

In the discussion, unless otherwise stated, adjectives such as “substantially” and “about” modifying a condition or relationship characteristic of a feature or features of an embodiment of the disclosure, are understood to mean that the condition or characteristic is defined to within tolerances that are acceptable for operation of the embodiment for an application for which it is intended.

The example embodiments described herein are provided for illustrative purposes and are not limiting. The examples described herein may be adapted to any type of method or system for managing storage of and access to file system objects. Further structural and operational embodiments, including modifications/alterations, will become apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art(s) from the teachings herein.

Numerous exemplary embodiments are described as follows. It is noted that any section/subsection headings provided herein are not intended to be limiting. Embodiments are described throughout this document, and any type of embodiment may be included under any section/subsection. Furthermore, embodiments disclosed in any section/subsection may be combined with any other embodiments described in the same section/subsection and/or a different section/subsection in any manner.

II. Example Embodiments

Cloud storage is a model of data storage in which digital data is stored in logical pools of storage embodied in physical storage devices hosted by a cloud storage provider. A cloud storage system may include a networked set of computing resources, including storage devices, servers, routers, etc., that are configurable, shareable, provide data security, and provide access to cloud storage to user devices over the Internet. A cloud storage system provides users the ability to store very large amounts of data for essentially any duration of time. Cloud storage system customers have access to their data from anywhere, at any time, and pay for what they use and store. Data stored in cloud storage may be durably stored using both local and geographic replication to facilitate disaster recovery.

Some cloud storage systems, such as but not limited to Microsoft Azure® Blob Storage, store file system objects in a flat global namespace. However, many big data and data analytics systems are designed to store data in a hierarchical namespace. For example, many big data and data analytics systems are configured to work with the Apache™ Hadoop® Distributed File System (HDFS). The HDFS design is based on requirements for a POSIX filesystem, but in a few key areas the POSIX semantics has been traded to increase data throughput rates. The POSIX namespace is a hierarchical namespace with unlimited depth of nesting and atomic operations over the namespace. A challenge in providing HDFS semantics in existing cloud storage systems, such as Microsoft Azure® Blob Storage is the differences between the namespaces.

To enable true lift-and-shift of on-premises storage that uses a hierarchical directory structure to a cloud storage system that uses a flat namespace, as well as hybrid scenarios (a user that uses both on-premises storage implementing a hierarchical directory structure and cloud storage implementing a flat directory structure), embodiments disclosed herein provide a hierarchical namespace service. The hierarchical namespace service enables commands that refer to file system objects using hierarchical namespace identifiers to be executed against the file system objects in a flat namespace.

For instance, FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a system 100 that utilizes a hierarchical namespace service in accordance with example embodiments. As shown in FIG. 1, system 100 includes an application 102, a hierarchical namespace service 104, and a flat namespace storage system 106. Each of these components may be executing on one or more computing devices. Connections between the components may be implemented via one or more network or peer-to-peer connections.

Flat namespace storage system 106 is intended to represent a cloud storage system that stores file system objects using a flat global namespace. In one example, flat namespace storage system 106 comprises Microsoft Azure® Blob Storage.

Application 102 is intended to represent a computer program that is configured to store and access data in a hierarchical namespace. By way of example only and without limitation, application 102 may comprise a big data or data analytics application that is configured to store and access file system objects in an HDFS hierarchical namespace. To store and access such file system object in the hierarchical namespace, application 102 generates first file system commands 108 that refer to file system objects using hierarchical namespace identifiers (e.g., path names in the hierarchical namespace).

Hierarchical namespace service 104 receives first file system commands 108, maps the hierarchical namespace identifiers included therein to identifiers of the file system objects in the flat namespace of flat namespace file system 106, and then generates second file system commands 110. Second file system commands 110 include references to the file system objects in the flat namespace of flat namespace storage system 106. In this way, hierarchical namespace service 104 enable first file system commands 108, which refer to file system objects using hierarchical namespace identifiers, to be executed against the corresponding file system objects in the flat namespace of flat namespace storage system 106.

To provide the foregoing functionality, hierarchical namespace service 104 maintains a mapping between the hierarchical namespace identifiers (or paths) and the flat namespace identifiers of the file system objects stored in flat namespace storage system 106. In one example embodiment, the mapping is maintained in a namespace table. By maintaining such a mapping, hierarchical namespace service 104 can execute file system commands such as “move file” or “move directory” in flat namespace storage system 106 without having to physically move a file or move a folder (and all of its contents, which could be tens, hundred, thousands, millions, billions, or even greater numbers of files) in storage. Instead, in each case, one or more map entries may be modified, rather than physically moving file system objects, which would entail expensive file system operations to execute. By changing map entries rather than performing expensive file system object operations, embodiments enable a significant reduction in processor operations and load.

Hierarchical namespace service 104 may be implemented in a variety of types of storage systems. For instance, FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a system 200 that includes multiple instances of a hierarchical namespace service that enables file system commands that use hierarchical namespace identifiers to refer to file system objects to be applied to the file system objects in a flat namespace, in accordance with example embodiments. System 200 includes a storage system 202 that stores file system objects on behalf of applications, such as an application 220 running on a computing device 218, wherein such applications can number in the tens, hundreds, thousand, millions, and even greater numbers of applications.

As shown in FIG. 2, storage system 202 includes a location service 204, a domain name service (DNS) 206, a first storage cluster 208A, and a second storage cluster 208B. First storage cluster 208A includes a front end layer 210A, a partition layer 212A, and a stream layer 214A, and partition layer 212A includes a hierarchical namespace service 216A. Second storage cluster 208B includes a front end layer 210B, a partition layer 212B, and a stream layer 214B, and partition layer 212B includes a hierarchical namespace service 216B. Storage system 202 may include any number of storage clusters implemented similarly to first and second storage clusters 208A and 208B, including numbers in the tens, hundreds, thousand, millions, and even greater numbers of storage clusters. Storage system 202 is described as follows.

Storage clusters 208A and 208B are each a cluster of N racks of physical storage servers, where each rack is built out as a separate fault domain with redundant networking and power. Each of storage clusters 208A and 208B may include any number of racks, with any number of physical storage servers per rack. Storage clusters may include raw storage of any amount, including petabytes (PB) or even greater amounts of storage. A storage cluster may be managed to keep the storage from being too fully utilized, which could lead to a performance fall off. As such, a storage cluster may be managed to a predetermined desired utilization, such as 70% or other value, in terms of capacity, transactions, and bandwidth, and avoiding going above or below predetermined utilizations bounds, thereby keeping storage in reserve for (a) disk short stroking to gain better seek time and higher throughput by utilizing the outer tracks of the disks and (b) to continue providing storage capacity and availability in the presence of a rack failure within a storage cluster. When a cluster reaches a high level of utilization, location service 204 may migrate accounts to different storage clusters using inter-cluster replication.

Location service 204 may be implemented in one or more servers and is configured to manage storage clusters 208A and 208B. Location service 204 is also responsible for managing the account metadata across all stamps. Location service 204 allocates accounts to storage clusters 208A and 208B and manages them across storage clusters 208A and 208B for disaster recovery and load balancing. Location service 204 may be distributed across multiple geographic locations for its own disaster recovery.

In an embodiment, storage system 202 includes storage in multiple locations in multiple geographic regions (e.g., North America, Europe, Asia, etc.). Each location may include a data center with one or more buildings containing multiple storage clusters. To provision additional capacity, location service 204 may add new regions, new locations to a region, or new storage clusters to a location. Therefore, to increase the amount of storage, one or more storage clusters may be deployed in the desired location's data center and added to location service 204. Location service 204 can allocate new storage accounts to those new storage clusters for customers as well as load balance (migrate) existing storage accounts from older storage clusters to the new storage clusters.

In FIG. 2, location service 204 tracks the resources used by each storage cluster, including storage clusters 208A and 208B, in production across all locations. When an application requests a new account for storing data, the application specifies the location affinity for the storage (e.g., US North). Location service 204 chooses a storage cluster within that location as the primary storage cluster for the account using heuristics based on the load information across all storage clusters (which considers the fullness of the storage clusters and other metrics such as network and transaction utilization). Location service 204 stores the account metadata information in the chosen storage cluster, which tells the storage cluster to start taking traffic for the assigned account. Location service 204 updates DNS 206 to allow requests to now route from a URI to that storage cluster's virtual IP (VIP) address (an IP address the storage cluster exposes for external traffic).

Front End (FE) layers 210A and 210B each includes a set of stateless servers that receive incoming requests from applications such as application 220. Upon receiving a request, the corresponding FE looks up the AccountName, authenticates and authorizes the request, then routes the request to a partition server in the corresponding one of partition layers 212A and 212B (based on the PartitionKey). Partition layers 212A and 212B each maintains a Partition Map that keeps track of the PartitionKey ranges and which partition server is serving which PartitionKeys for the storage cluster. The FE servers cache the Partition Map and use it to determine which partition server to forward each request to. The FE servers also stream large objects directly from the corresponding one of stream layers 214A and 214B, and cache frequently accessed data for efficiency.

Hierarchical namespace service 216A and 216B are respectively positioned between front-end layer 210A and partition layer 212A, and front-end layer 210B and partition layer 212B. Hierarchical namespace service 216A and 216B are each an example of hierarchical namespace service 104 of FIG. 1 and are configured to transform requests that utilize hierarchical namespace identifiers to refer to file system objects to requests directed to the file system objects in the flat namespace of storage clusters 208A and 208B.

Partition layers 212A and 212B are each configured for (a) managing and understanding higher level data abstractions (e.g., Blob, Table, Queue), (b) providing transaction ordering and strong consistency for objects, (c) storing object data on top of the corresponding stream layer, and (d) caching object data to reduce disk I/O.

Furthermore, partition layers 212A and 212B each enable scalability by partitioning the data objects within the corresponding storage cluster. As described earlier, data objects have a PartitionKey. The data objects may be broken down into disjointed ranges based on the PartitionKey values and served by different partition servers. Partition layers 212A and 212B each manage which partition server is serving what PartitionKey ranges for the data objects (e.g., Blobs, Tables, and Queues). In addition, partition layers 212A and 212B each provide automatic load balancing of PartitionKeys across the partition servers to meet the traffic needs of the data objects.

Stream layers 214A and 214B store the data on physical storage (e.g., hard disks, solid state storage, etc.) and are in charge of distributing and replicating the data across many servers to keep data durable within the corresponding storage cluster. Stream layers 214A and 214B can each be thought of as a distributed file system layer within a storage cluster. A stream layer understands files, called “streams” (which are ordered lists of large storage chunks called “extents”), how to store them, how to replicate them, etc., but does not understand higher level object constructs or their semantics. Data is stored in stream layers 214A and 214B but is accessible from corresponding front end layers 210A and 210B and partition layers 212A and 212B.

Note that data may be stored in storage of stream layers 214A and 214B in any form, including file system objects such as files and folders, binary large objects or Blobs (user files), Tables (structured storage), and Queues (message delivery). Stream layers 214A and 214B store data in the form of large files referred to as streams, and enables the corresponding partition layer to open, close, delete, rename, read, append to, and concatenate the streams. In an embedment, a stream is an ordered list of extent pointers, where an extent is a sequence of append blocks. For example, a stream “//foo” may contains (pointers to) four extents (E1, E2, E3, and E4). Each extent contains a set of blocks that were appended to it. In one example, E1, E2 and E3 may be sealed extents, meaning they can no longer be appended to. In this example, only the last extent in the stream, E4, can be appended to. If an application reads the data of the stream “//foo” from beginning to end, the application receives the block contents of the extents in the order of E1, E2, E3 and E4.

In further detail, a block is a minimum unit of data for writing and reading. In an embodiment, a block can be up to N bytes (e.g., 4 MB). Data is written (appended) as one or more concatenated blocks to an extent, where blocks do not have to be the same size. An append may be specified in terms of blocks and the size of each block. A read gives an offset to a stream or extent, and the stream layer reads as many blocks as needed at the offset to fulfill the length of the read. When performing a read, the entire contents of a block are read. For instance, the corresponding stream layer may store its checksum validation at the block level, one checksum per block. The whole block is read to perform the checksum validation and may be checked on every block read. All blocks may be validated against their checksums once every few days to check for data integrity issues.

An extent is the unit of replication in the stream layer, and one example default replication policy is to maintain three replicas within a storage cluster for an extent. Each extent is stored in a file and consists of a sequence of blocks. The target extent size used by the partition layer may be 1 GB, for example. To store small objects, the partition layer appends many of them to the same extent and even in the same block. To store large TB (terabyte)-sized objects (e.g., Blobs), the object may be broken up over many extents by the partition layer. The partition layer keeps track of what streams, extents, and byte offsets in the extents in which objects are stored as part of its index.

Every stream has a name in the stream layer, and a stream appears as a large file to the partition layer. Streams may be appended to and can be randomly read from. A stream is an ordered list of pointers to extents which is maintained by a stream manager of the stream layer. When the extents are concatenated together they represent the full contiguous address space in which the stream can be read in the order they were added to the stream. A new stream can be constructed by concatenating extents from existing streams, which can be a fast operation because just a list of pointers is updated. Only the last extent in the stream can be appended to. All of the prior extents in the stream are immutable.

Storage system 202 provides a single global namespace that allows clients to address all of their storage and scale to arbitrary amounts of storage needed over time. To provide this capability, DNS 206 is leveraged as part of the storage namespace, and the storage namespace is defined in three parts: an account name, a partition name, and an object name. As a result, data is accessible in storage system 20 via a URI of the form:

-   -   http(s)://AccountName/FileSystemName/ObjectName

The AccountName is the customer selected account name for accessing storage and is part of the DNS host name. The AccountName DNS translation is performed by DNS 206 to locate the primary storage cluster of first and second storage clusters 208A and 208B (or other storage cluster) and data center where the data is stored. This primary location is where all requests go to reach the data for that account. An application, such as application 220, may use multiple AccountNames to store its data across different locations. The FileSystemName locates the data once a request reaches the storage cluster. The PartitionKey is logically a composite of AccountName;FileSystemName; ObjectName. Storage system 202 supports atomic transactions across objects with the same PartitionKey value. PartitionKey is used to scale out access to the data across storage servers based on traffic needs. A partition could hold just a single file/object or it could hold half of the files/objects in a file system or it could hold all of the files/objects across multiple file systems. The partitioning may be managed by a master table service (described elsewhere herein).

This naming approach enables storage system 202 to flexibly support multiple data abstractions. For example, with respect to Blobs, the full blob name is the PartitionKey. A blob can have snapshots. As noted above, the PartitionKey is AccountName;FileSystemName;ObjectName, but the RowKey, which identifies objects within a partition key, is AccountName;FileSystemName;ObjectName;SnapshotVersion, so the system can transactionally operate on snapshots for the same file/object.

The hierarchical and flat namespaces are described as follows. For instance, FIG. 3 shows an example of directory paths and files in a hierarchical directory structure 300, in accordance with an embodiment. FIG. 4 shows a hierarchical namespace topology 400 corresponding to hierarchical directory structure 300 of FIG. 3, in accordance with an example embodiment. Topologically, hierarchical namespace topology 400 is a tree. The tree is formed of nodes and relationship of the nodes. Every node, except the root, has a parent. In addition to the parent, each node has set of assigned attributes, one of which is the name of the node. The node's name is unique in the name of the nodes that have the same parent. The names can change with no effect on the topology. Changes in topology do not affect names or properties. In hierarchical namespace topology 400, each node is shown assigned a unique nonvolatile identifier, such as a GUID (globally unique identifier) that may be used to identify each node in a flat namespace. Herein, the unique nonvolatile identifier is frequently referred to as a GUID, although this reference is for illustrative purposes. Embodiments are applicable to identifying file system objects, such as files and folders, using any type of unique nonvolatile identifier, such as a GUID, multiple GUIDs, a GUID plus timestamp, or any other type of identifier that does not change and is unique within the relevant scope of the storage system.

For example, FIG. 4 shows GUID1-GUID4, which are unique identifiers corresponding to /, path1/, path2/, and path3/ of hierarchical directory structure 300 of FIG. 3. GUID1 is an identifier for the root directory, GUID2 is an identifier for the path1 directory under the root directory, GUID3 is an identifier for the path2 directory under the root directory, and GUID4 is an identifier for the path3 directory under the path2 directory. Two files (file1 and file2) are under the path2 directory, and a file (file3) is under the path3 directory. FIG. 5 shows hierarchical namespace topology 400 with the path and file names of FIG. 3 overlaid on the nodes.

As can be seen from FIG. 5, hierarchical namespace service 104 maps hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects (e.g., /path2/) to identifiers of those file system objects (e.g., GUIDs) in a flat namespace. Hierarchical namespace service 104 may be implemented in various ways. For instance, FIG. 6 shows a block diagram of an example architecture 600 for implementing hierarchical namespace service 104, in accordance with an example embodiment. As shown in FIG. 6, architecture 600 includes a master table service 602, hierarchical namespace service 104, physical nodes 604, virtual nodes 606, directory blocks 608, entity blocks 610, one or more file versions 612, and one or more directory versions 614. Generally, each element in architecture 600 comprises part of and/or is managed by the element shown below it. Architecture 600 is described as follows.

Master table service 602 is configured to manage various data structures used to implement storage system 202 (FIG. 2), such as data objects (e.g., blobs, files, directories, etc.), queues, etc. For example, the data structures may have the form of tables, and may track objects in storage, such as by including identifiers for the objects, indicating locations (e.g., partitions) where the objects are stored (e.g., indicated by partition keys), timestamps for storage of the objects, etc. In an embodiment, each row of a table may have a schema, and may be accessed by a partition key and a row key, referred to as a primary key of the row. Master table service 602, which may be implemented in the partition layer for a storage cluster, may maintain a namespace table (also referred to herein as a “master directory block map”) as a persistent store of the namespace state and of the managed partitions of the storage cluster. The master directory block map may maintain a mapping between hierarchical namespace identifiers (e.g., path names) of file system objects and flat namespace identifiers (e.g., GUIDs) of those file system objects as well as an indication of the parent-child relationships between the file system objects.

Hierarchical namespace service 104, as described above, is a service that receives file system commands that refer to file system objects using hierarchical namespace identifiers, maps the hierarchical namespace identifiers to flat namespace identifiers, and then applies the commands against the file system objects in a flat namespace using the flat namespace identifiers. In an embodiment, hierarchical namespace service 104 comprises a set of physical nodes 604, which manage virtual nodes 606 that perform these functions in a distributed manner.

In an embodiment, each physical node of physical nodes 604 may be implemented as a physical machine. For example, a physical node may be implemented as a physical server. The physical server may execute and/or implement one or more of virtual nodes 606, such as by executing a hypervisor that presents a virtual operating platform that virtual nodes may run upon in the form of virtual machines. Many physical nodes may be present in a storage cluster, such as one thousand physical nodes or other number.

The number of virtual nodes 606 managed by physical nodes 604 may be scalable or may be a predefined or static number. Many virtual nodes may be present in a storage cluster for implementing a hierarchical namespace service, such as ten thousand virtual nodes or other number. Virtual nodes may be moved between physical nodes. For example, if a first virtual node is too busy (e.g., operating over a processor utilization level threshold) and a second virtual node is also busy, and they are both managed by (e.g., running upon) the same physical node, one of the virtual nodes may be transferred to another physical node that is available and has enough resources. As such, load balancing may be performed by hierarchical namespace service 104 by shifting virtual nodes 606 among physical nodes 604. Virtual nodes 606 may each maintain their state in a persistent storage so that at any time, a virtual node may be moved and/or restarted on a different physical node 606. In an embodiment, a different identifier (e.g. a numeric identifier (ID)) is associated with each of virtual nodes 606, and only one instance of a virtual node having a given identifier is running at any given time.

Directory blocks 608 correspond to hierarchical namespace directories. In general, a single directory block corresponds to a single directory. When a directory is created, a GUID is generated and assigned to the directory to become a permanent name of the directory. In an embodiment, a hash function is performed on the GUID to generate a hash result. The hash result is used to determine a permanent place for the directory block of the directory. In an embodiment, the directory is assigned to a virtual node having a numeric ID that matches the hash result, and that assignment does not change (unless load balancing changes the assignment). The directory is permanently managed by that virtual node via the GUID.

Directory blocks 608 are managed by a respective virtual node 606, with every directory block corresponding to a directory (root or sub-) or a portion of a directory in a hierarchical namespace. Inside directory block 608 are entity blocks 610, with each entity block being a file or a folder. Note that any number of directory blocks 608 and entity blocks 610 may be managed by hierarchical namespace service 104, including numbers in the billions.

Each entity block may have multiple versions. A file entity block has one or more versions indicated as file version(s) 612, and a folder/directory entity block has one or more versions indicated as directory version(s) 614. Any number of versions may be present for directory blocks 608 and entity blocks 610, including numbers in the ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, or even greater numbers of versions. The versions of an entity block are contained behind the specific name. For example, if attributes of a file named “foo” are changed, a new version of “foo” is generated, and all versions of “foo” share the same name. Entity block versions enable using multi-version concurrency control (MVCC). According to MVCC, the namespace is capable of executing transactions not only at the current moment for an entity block, but also for the entity block at points in the past, by executing a transaction against an earlier version of the entity block that was current at the time the transaction was received (e.g., as verified by comparing timestamps).

As mentioned above, master table service 602 may manage data structures that map file system objects in a hierarchical namespace, such as folders and files, to file system object identifiers in a flat namespace, and that indicate parent-child relationships between the file system objects. Such data structures for mapping may have any form, such as the form of tables. For instance, FIG. 7 shows an example master directory block table 700, in accordance with an example embodiment. Master directory block table 700 is an example of a data structure that may be used to map hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects to flat namespace identifiers and to identify parent-child relationships between the file system objects. As shown in FIG. 7, master directory block table 700 includes a directory block identifier (DBID) column 702, a name column 704, a commit time (CT) column 706, and an entity block identifier (EBID) column 708, and may optionally include further columns such as a deleted indication column (the “delete flag”), a file indication column, and/or further columns. Master directory block table 700 is described in further detail as follows.

Master directory block table 700 may be managed by master table service 602 of FIG. 6, while hierarchical namespace service 104 may manage a version of master directory block table 700 that is distributed over many locations. For instance, each virtual node of virtual nodes 606 may maintain/store and manage a corresponding portion of master directory block table 700, referred to herein as a directory block map. For example, directory block table 700 is shown segmented into portions 710A, 710B, 710C and 710D. Each of portions 710A-710D corresponds to a particular set of one or more directory blocks and entity blocks in storage in the form of one or more rows. Furthermore, each of portions 710A-710D may be managed by a corresponding virtual node. For instance, a first virtual node may maintain first portion 710A, a second virtual node may maintain second portion 710B, a third virtual node may maintain third portion 710C, and a fourth virtual node may maintain fourth portion 710D. By distributing the maintenance of master directory block table 700 across the virtual nodes in this fashion, performance of hierarchical namespace service 104 is improved.

DBID column 702 stores an identifier for each directory block in the form of a DBID. A DBID is unique identifier that never changes for a particular directory block. In one embodiment, a DBID is a 128-bit GUID generated for every new directory block.

EBID column 708 stores an identifier for each entity block in the form of an EBID. When an entity block is a directory, the assigned EBID is also the DBID for the directory. When the entity block is a file, the EBID is a unique identifier that never changes for that entity block. If an entity block has multiple versions, the versions are listed in corresponding rows in the directory block map (to enable MVCC). The different versions represent different states of the file or directory of the entity block at corresponding different specific time intervals. In an embodiment, the EBID for an entity block is a GUID.

In the example of FIG. 7, three versions of a same entity block are listed in row entries 6, 7, and 8 inclusive. Rows 6, 7, and 8 list the same DBID and EBID, but have different values in a commit time (CT) column 706, which indicates a time at which the respective version of the entity block was committed to storage. As such, a version of the entity block is valid for reading only when a transaction read timestamp (RT) of a command directed to the entity block has a value between the commit time of the version and the commit time of the next version of the entity block (or the present time if there is no next version). In this manner, a command may act on the version of an entity block that was valid at the time the command was issued, rather than on the most recent version of the entity block.

Accordingly, in master directory block table 700, each row represents a version of an entity block. The primary key (PK) for master directory block table 700 is the DBID. The row key (RK) is the name (in name column 704) for the entity block and the commit time. Table 1 shows example types and description for various columns that may be present in master directory block table 700, including the columns shown in FIG. 7.

TABLE 1 Key? Column/Name Type Description PK DBID BINARY Unique Directory Identifier RK Name VAR CHAR File or Directory name (e.g., UTF-8) RK Commit Time CHAR The first transaction when this version in EB visible (deleted) Deleted BIT Is this a delete record? File BIT Is this file or directory? EBID BINARY Unique Entity Block Identifier. . . . Additional Columns for every associated property.

In an embodiment, data in master directory block table 700 is rendered immutable. Create, Update, and Delete commands add a new row in the table. A garbage collection (GC) process may be implemented to removes old rows from the table at predetermined intervals or otherwise.

When a client (e.g., application 220 of FIG. 2) changes a file or directory property, the change is indicated in the directory block of the parent directory of the file or directory. For example, the result of changing an access attribute of a file is the insertion of a row in master directory block table 700 with a DBID equal to the EBID of the parent folder, the name of the file, an EBID equal to file's EBID, and the new value of the attribute.

However, there are directory properties that a client can change indirectly. For example, the last write timestamp for a directory changes when a client creates a new file in the directory. For those cases, each directory may have a special file (e.g., with internal name “.”) referred to as a “dot file,” where directory attributes that may change indirectly are maintained. The dot file may maintain such properties locally with the directory and, at predefined intervals, at least some of these properties may be copied from the dot file to the properties in the parent directory's directory block where a client can view them. For example, a last read time may be propagated to the client's section once every hour. The propagation can be performed on a more complex schedule. For example, when a directory timestamp changes, the updated time may be propagated to the parent directory first immediately and then later after a predefined period of time.

As mentioned above, a directory block map is a distributed portion of master directory block table 700 that is associated with a virtual node. Each virtual node maintains a corresponding portion of master directory block table 700 as a directory block map. In an embodiment, the directory block map is maintained in main memory. In main memory, the directory block map may maintain its data, such as the directory block and entity block identifiers, in the form of a hash table and tries. The memory representation is optimized for supporting live transactions and keeping a small part of hot data.

For every entity block listed in a directory block map of a virtual node, rows for the last few versions are maintained with information about the state of transactions and a flag that shows whether or not there are more earlier (older) versions in master directory block table 700. An entity block's versions are a list of entity blocks. The list grows from the head. If too many entries are in the list, the oldest entries can be discarded, and an indication may be made at the tail of the list that more versions are stored in master directory block table 700 and/or in one or more name resolution caches (described in further detail below). In memory, a directory block provides quick access to the mapping between client-specified names (of name column 704) and EBIDs (of EBID column 708).

In an embodiment, an additional data structure is provided as another distributed form of master directory block table 700. The additional data structure is referred to herein as a name resolution cache and forms a distributed cache service. As will be discussed in more detail herein, the name resolution cache is used by virtual nodes that are configured to perform a name resolution function that maps hierarchical namespace directory names (or paths) to DBIDs. Such name resolution nodes may obtain the necessary name-to-DBID mappings from other virtual nodes (referred to herein as storage nodes), but afterward store those name-to-DBID mappings in a local name resolution cache so that subsequent name resolution operations can be performed more efficiently. Each virtual node may have an associated name resolution cache. The nature of the service provided by the name resolution cache is a key value store. The key is sequence of bytes. The name resolution cache supports sparse streams as values.

For example, an entry in the name resolution cache may comprise a representation of one value with 3 versions: v1, v2, and v3. At offset TS1 through offset TS2, V1 can be written, at offset TS2 through offset TS3, value v2 can be written, and from offset TS3 until an end of the name resolution cache (e.g., offset 2{circumflex over ( )}64), value v3 can be written. Subsequently, the name resolution cache can be read at any offset of the stream and the name resolution cache will return the correct value.

Entity blocks and directory blocks may be cached in a name resolution cache by a virtual node. With regard to an entity block, the name resolution cache key is DBID+EBID. A stream may be written into an entity block version between the offsets of the commit transaction that introduced the data and the commit transaction for the next version. The read of the entity block is performed by a specific timestamp that used as the offset in the stream. The name resolution cache returns the data stored within a range in which the offset falls. When a newer value is stored, the previously stored values are rewritten. With regard to a directory block, the name resolution cache key is DBID+EBID. Timestamps of earlier requests are written into the stream list of EBIDs.

If, upon a read operation, the name resolution cache returns data, the data is considered correct until some point in time. This point of time could be the current time or a time in the past. The namespace data is immutable, so there is no issue with reading invalid data, but there might be a newer version of the data that has not been uploaded in the name resolution cache. In this case, the results from local memory (the directory block map) and the name resolution cache are combined. Because the name resolution cache is updated with every write to the master directory block table 700, if no newer version is present in the directory block map, the name resolution cache version is the latest.

Accordingly, embodiments of a hierarchical namespace service implement maps for mapping between hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects and flat namespace identifiers of those file system objects at multiple levels, including master directory block table 700, the directory block maps at the virtual nodes (distributed), and the name resolution caches at the virtual nodes (distributed), providing redundancy, greater efficiency (e.g., reduced traffic in requesting mapping information), and faster operation (e.g., via faster access to nearby mapping information, storing hashes of identifiers for faster compares, etc.).

Hierarchical namespace service 104 may be implemented as physical and virtual nodes in various ways to use the mapping information to process file system transaction requests, in embodiments. For instance, FIG. 8 shows a block diagram of a hierarchical namespace service 800 that includes physical nodes and virtual nodes, according to an embodiment. As shown in FIG. 8, hierarchical namespace service 800 includes a plurality of physical nodes 802A-802E and a plurality of sets of virtual nodes 808 (represented as a dotted circle). Sets of virtual nodes 808 includes a first set of virtual nodes 804A, a second set of virtual nodes 804B, and a third set of virtual nodes 804E. First set of virtual nodes 804A includes a first virtual node 806A and optionally one or more further virtual nodes. Second set of virtual nodes 804B includes a second virtual node 806B and optionally one or more further virtual nodes. Third set of virtual nodes 804E includes a third virtual node 806E and optionally further virtual nodes. Hierarchical namespace service 800 is further described with reference to FIG. 9. FIG. 9 shows a flowchart 900 of a process for a namespace mapping system to map commands from a hierarchical namespace to a flat file structure, in accordance with an example embodiment. In an embodiment, hierarchical namespace service 800 may operate according to flowchart 900. Flowchart 900 and hierarchical namespace service 800 are described as follows.

In step 902, a plurality of physical nodes is executed. In an embodiment, physical nodes 802A-802E execute in one or more servers as physical machines (not shown in FIG. 8). Any number of physical nodes may be present, including numbers in the tens, hundreds, thousands, and even greater numbers of physical nodes. In an embodiment, the physical nodes in a storage cluster perform a same role, as described herein. Each physical node is independent and communicates with the other physical nodes.

In step 904, a plurality of sets of virtual nodes is executed. As shown in FIG. 8, virtual nodes 808, including first, second, and third sets of virtual nodes 804A, 804B, and 804E, execute. Any number of virtual nodes may be present, including numbers in the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even greater numbers of virtual nodes. A virtual node may be implemented in various ways, including as a virtual machine that runs on a physical node.

In step 906, each set of virtual nodes is managed (e.g., hosted/run) by a corresponding physical node. For example, as shown in FIG. 8, physical node 806A manages first set of virtual nodes 804A, physical node 802B manages second set of virtual nodes 804B, and physical node 802E manages third set of virtual nodes 804E. Each set of virtual nodes managed by a physical node may include any number of virtual nodes. Note that each physical node may manage a different number of virtual nodes and some physical nodes may not manage any virtual nodes at a given time. For example, physical nodes 802C and 802D may not be managing any virtual nodes at the current time, but subsequently, one or more virtual nodes may be transferred to physical nodes 802C and 802D from other physical nodes (e.g., for load balancing).

In step 908, each virtual node manages a respective set of directory blocks, wherein each directory block is a respective partition of a namespace table and is managed by a corresponding single virtual node. The namespace table maintains a mapping between hierarchical namespace identifiers (e.g., path names) of file system objects and flat namespace identifiers (e.g., GUIDs) of those file system objects as well as an indication of the parent-child relationships between the file system objects. In an embodiment, each of the virtual nodes of sets of virtual nodes 804A, 804B, and 804E may manage a respective set of one or more directory blocks, although some virtual nodes may be managing zero directory blocks at a particular time. As described elsewhere herein, each directory block is managed by a same, particular virtual node.

In step 910, a directory block map is managed by each virtual node, wherein the directory block map maps file system object names in a hierarchical namespace to entity block identifiers in the flat namespace for entity blocks stored in directories corresponding to the managed set of directory blocks. In an embodiment, each virtual node of sets of virtual nodes 804A, 804B, and 804E manages a corresponding directory block map. As described above, the directory block map may be a data structure maintained in memory. The directory block map, for a virtual node, contains entries that map hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects to entity block identifiers of corresponding entity blocks stored in a flat namespace, wherein the hierarchical namespace identifiers are within a particular hierarchical namespace directory managed by the virtual node.

Accordingly, hierarchical namespace service 104 provides for the management of a namespace used to address file system objects in storage and may be implemented in the form of physical nodes and virtual nodes. Further detail regarding such embodiments are provided in the following subsections, including a subsection describing further embodiments for mapping commands between file systems, followed by a subsection describing further embodiments for distributed caching of mappings between hierarchical namespace identifiers and flat namespace identifiers.

A. Example Embodiments for File System Mapping of Commands

Virtual nodes of FIG. 8 may be implemented in various ways. For instance, FIG. 10 shows a block diagram of a virtual node 1002, in accordance with an embodiment. Each virtual node of FIG. 8 may be implemented similarly to virtual node 1002, in an embodiment. As shown in FIG. 10, virtual node 1002 includes a command forwarder 1004, a path resolver 1006, and a mapping manager 1008. Command forwarder 1004 includes a hash generator 1010. Furthermore, virtual node 1002 maintains a directory block map 1010, a name resolution cache 1012, and a name resolution node registry 1014. These features of virtual node 1002 are described as follows.

Command forwarder 1004 of virtual node 1002 is configured to receive commands containing file system operations directed to entity blocks stored in the storage cluster managed by the hierarchical namespace service, such as hierarchical namespace service 800. When a client sends a command directed to a file system entity block, the client uses the name of the file or the directory (i.e., a hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object), including the path name to the file or directory. In an embodiment, when virtual node 1002 is not the virtual node that manages the identified file or directory, virtual node 1002 operates as a “query node” to forward the received command for processing. In such a case, command forwarder 1004 determines another virtual node (referred to as the “name resolution node”) to handle identifying still another virtual node that manages the file or directory (referred to herein as the “storage node”) and therefore is configured to execute the command. In an embodiment, hash generator 1010 of command forwarder 1004 may perform a hash function on the path name, such as a CRC64 algorithm or other suitable hash function, to generate a hash result. The hash result identifies the name resolution node. Command forwarder 1004 forwards the received command to the identified name resolution node.

Path resolver 1006 of virtual node 1002 is configured to receive commands from query nodes, resolve directory names (or paths) included in those commands to flat namespace identifiers, and use the flat namespace identifiers to identify the virtual nodes that are the storage nodes for managing the directories or files to which the commands are directed. In particular, for a given command, path resolver 1006 resolves a directory name or path included in a command to a DBID. The name resolution is performed efficiently and in a manner that is strongly consistent with respect to all transactions. It is noted that the mapping between a path name and a DBID may change, such as when a directory is renamed, and this may affect name resolution caching for all the children of the renamed directory, including indirect children of the directory. In some cases, name resolution cache 1012 of virtual node 1002 may store a mapping of the path name to the DBID of the file or directory in the command. In such a case, path resolver 1006 may forward the command to the storage node of that DBID. Otherwise, path resolver 1006 resolves the storage node by processing the path name.

In particular, path resolver 1006 may begin processing the path name in the command at the root and work its way down path portion by path portion, to determine the relevant storage node for executing the command. In particular, for the path name of /path1/path2, path resolver 1006 may communicate with the virtual node managing the root partition to determine the DBID for the first directory in the path name (e.g., /path1). The virtual node managing the root partition finds the first directory in its directory block map 1010 and supplies the DBID back to path resolver 1006. Then, path resolver 1006 may communicate with the virtual node that manages the directory block for that DBID to determine the DBID for the second directory in the path name (e.g., /path2). The virtual node managing /path1 finds the second directory in its directory block map 1010 and supplies the DBID back to path resolver 1006. This process may be repeated for any further path name portions. Eventually, path resolver 1006 determines the DBID for the directory block that contains the entity block to which the command is directed and transmits the command to the storage node that manages that directory block.

With path resolver 1006, any virtual node can find and return DBIDs for a path at a specific RT (read timestamp). In the process of finding the mapping, virtual node 1002 also registers for notifications with all DBID owners of the path for a time period, such as 1 hour, in their corresponding name resolution node registries 1014. If a change occurs anywhere in the path name before the time expires, the corresponding manager of that path name portion notifies every virtual node registered for that path name that the change occurred, and the entry for that path name in name resolution cache 1012 for the registered virtual nodes is invalid.

Note that the registration at the storage node may have a predetermined expiration time (lease), such as 1 min. If in the next time period (e.g., 45) seconds, a new request is received by the name resolution node with regard to the same entity block, the name resolution node resolves the name using its name resolution cache 1012 without sending new registration messages to the DBID owner(s). After that, if a new request is received by the name resolution node, the name resolution node again registers with the DBID owners.

Mapping manager 1008 of virtual node 1002 is configured to process commands for a storage node that are received from name resolution nodes. For instance, mapping manager 1008 may apply the name and timestamp in the received command as a key to directory block map 1010 of virtual node 1002 to determine the entity block to which the command is directed. Then, the command may be executed by virtual node 1002.

Note that a storage node that owns a particular directory block maintains in name resolution node registry 1014 entries for registered nodes per directory name. Name resolution node registry 1014 may have any suitable form, such as being a file. The initial registration for a virtual node is part of the node state, so is recorded in name resolution node registry 1014. An extension for the registration is not recorded in name resolution node registry 1014. When a virtual node is moved to a new physical node, the registration may be extended to the full time possible. For example, after a virtual node loads in a new physical node, the registration may again be provided with the 1-minute lease.

The processing of an incoming command is described in further detail with respect to FIG. 11. FIG. 11 shows a block diagram of a portion of hierarchical namespace service 800 of FIG. 8, where virtual nodes forward a command to a virtual node that manages an entity block identified in the command, in accordance with an example embodiment. As shown in FIG. 11, hierarchical namespace service 800 includes virtual node 806A, virtual node 806B, virtual node 806E, and a fourth virtual node 806R. A directory block map 1010B and a name resolution node registry 1014B are shown for virtual node 806B, a name resolution cache 1012C is shown for virtual node 806E, and a directory block map 1010R is shown for virtual node 806R. Physical nodes, further virtual nodes, and further directory block maps, name resolution node registries, and name resolution caches are not shown in FIG. 11 for ease of illustration. Note that the communications shown in the form of arrows in FIG. 11 are shown as occurring between virtual nodes but are actually communicated between virtual nodes by the underlying physical nodes (not shown in FIG. 11).

Hierarchical namespace service 800 of FIG. 11 is described with reference to FIGS. 12-14. FIG. 12 is a flowchart 1200 of a process for a virtual node to forward a received command to another virtual node for name resolution, in accordance with another example embodiment. FIG. 13 is a flowchart 1300 of a process for a virtual node to perform name resolution on a command to identify and forward the command to another virtual node that manages an entity block identified in the command, in accordance with another example embodiment. FIG. 14 is a flowchart 1400 of a process for a virtual node to execute a received command with regard to an entity block identified in the command, in accordance with another example embodiment. Flowcharts 1200, 1300, and 1400, and hierarchical namespace service 800 of FIG. 11 are described as follows.

Flowchart 1200 of FIG. 12 may be performed by a virtual node when operating as a query node as described above. For instance, command forwarder 1004 of virtual node 1002 in FIG. 10 may operate according to flowchart 1200. Note that flowchart 1200 describes a look-up of the name resolution virtual node by hashing a full path (to an entity block) provided in the file system command. In other embodiments, command forwarder 1004 may determine the name resolution node in other ways. For instance, command forwarder 1004 may be additionally (or alternatively) configured to determine the name resolution node based on file system metadata, such as metadata for accounts and file systems. Such file system metadata may include the “root directory” DBID. The front-end layer may look up such account and file system metadata, and pass this information to the hierarchical namespace service, which indicates which virtual node is the name resolution node to direct the name resolution request.

Flowchart 1200 begins with step 1202. In step 1202, a command directed to a first file system object is received, the command indicating a path or directory name in the hierarchical namespace associated with the first file system object. For example, as shown in FIG. 11, virtual node 806A receives an incoming command 1102. Command 1102 may have been initially issued by an application (such as application 220 of FIG. 2) to a storage system (such as storage system 202 of FIG. 2). Command 1102 may include a file system operation directed to an entity block stored in the storage cluster with namespace mapping managed by hierarchical namespace service 800. As such, command 1102 may have been forwarded to hierarchical namespace service 800. A physical node, such as physical node 802A of FIG. 8 may have received and forwarded command 1102 to virtual node 806A. For example, physical node 802A may have selected virtual node 806A of its managed set for receiving command 1102 on any sort of basis, including a rotation of incoming commands among virtual nodes, based on current workload, on a random basis, and/or any other basis.

Command 1102 indicates a target entity block, a hierarchical path name to the entity block, and an operation to perform on the target entity block and may further include an associated timestamp indicating a time of receipt.

In step 1204, a hash function is performed on the path or directory name to generate a first node identifier for a name resolution node of the virtual nodes. In an embodiment, hash generator 1010 of command forwarder 1004 may perform a hash function on the path or directory name of command 1102, such as a CRC64 algorithm or other suitable hash function, to generate a hash result. The hash result identifies the name resolution node. A motivation for this is to send all the requests for resolving the same path name to the same virtual node. If the same virtual node resolves the path name to the DBID, fewer virtual nodes will register for notifications. Furthermore, this approach improves the effectiveness of the name resolution caching as it increases the likelihood of cache hits.

In step 1206, the command is forwarded to the name resolution node to determine a storage node to handle the command. Command forwarder 1004 is configured to forward the received command 1102 to the identified name resolution node. As shown in FIG. 11, virtual node 806A forwards command 1102 to virtual node 806E as forwarded command 1104. Virtual node 806E is identified as the name resolution node by virtual node 806A due to being identified by the hash result. Note that although not shown in FIG. 11, forwarded command 1104 is forwarded to virtual node 806E by one or more physical nodes. For example, with reference to FIGS. 8 and 11, forwarded command 1104 may be forwarded from physical node 802A managing virtual node 806A to physical node 802E managing virtual node 806E.

In step 1208, whether an indication is received that the name resolution node is too busy to handle the command is determined. Note that if virtual node 806E (the name resolution node) is able to handle name resolution of forwarded command 1104, operation of flowchart 1200 ends after step 1206. However, if virtual node 806E is too busy, virtual node 806E may throttle the request, provide an indication of the throttling back to virtual node 806A, and operation proceeds to step 1210.

In step 1210, the virtual nodes are sequenced from the name resolution node to a next virtual node. In an embodiment, virtual node 806A selects another virtual node in hierarchical namespace service 800 to handle name resolution for command 1102. The virtual node may be selected in any manner, including by selecting the next virtual node in a sequence of virtual nodes (e.g., by virtual node identifiers), by selecting the next virtual node randomly, or selecting the next virtual node in another fashion. In an embodiment in which the next virtual node in a sequence is selected, this may be carried out by adding a predefined number (e.g., 1) to an identifier of the previously-selected virtual node to obtain an identifier of the next-selected virtual node. An approach that always selects the same next virtual node will tend to improve the benefits of name resolution caching by increasing the likelihood of cache hits.

In step 1212, the command is forwarded to the next virtual node to determine the storage node. Command forwarder 1004 is configured to forward received command 1102 to the next identified name resolution node as forwarded command 1104. In this manner, the name resolution requests can be distributed across multiple virtual nodes. This allows distributing the load across multiple virtual nodes, and handling the case where we have a busy virtual node managing a directory that stores billions of files, for example.

Note that in an embodiment, command forwarder 1004 of a query node may be implemented as a client library. When the client library sends a command to the name resolution node, the response to the command may be returned to the query node directly from the storage node that executed the command. This minimizes the number of messages sent back and forth. The query node may or may not be clock synchronized with the rest of the virtual nodes of the storage cluster. As such, the client library is configured to manage transaction, but does not execute the commands.

In an embodiment, a query node may implement flowchart 1200 of FIG. 12 according to the following operations: (a) Calculate the CRC64 for the normalized path (“/account/fs/path”) provided in the command to find the virtual node that will act as the name resolution node for the command (e.g., the name resolution node=(CRC-PATH % #VNSN); (b) Send the command to the name resolution node and wait for the result from storage node. If the name resolution node responds with a “throttled request,” the query node sends the command to the next name resolution node (e.g., query node+1). Sending a command to a same name resolution node can improve the utilization of the caching performed at name resolution nodes, though a command can alternatively be sent to an arbitrary node; and (c) Preserve a timestamp returned from the storage node to be used to calculate a final commit timestamp for the command.

Flowchart 1300 of FIG. 13 is now described. Flowchart 1300 may be performed by a virtual node when operating as a name resolution node as described above. For instance, path resolver 1006 of virtual node 1002 in FIG. 10 may operate according to flowchart 1300.

Flowchart 1300 begins with step 1302. In step 1302, a command regarding a first file system object is received from a query node of the virtual nodes, the command indicating a path or directory name in the hierarchical namespace associated with the first file system object. As shown in FIG. 11, virtual node 806E receives forwarded command 1104 from virtual node 806A operating as a query node.

In step 1304, a storage node corresponding to the path is determined. In an embodiment, path resolver 1006 of virtual node 806E may determine the virtual node managing the DBID corresponding to the path or directory name in forwarded command 1104. As described above, path resolver 1006 may first check name resolution cache 1012 to see if the path or directory name is shown mapped to the DBID (from processing a prior command). If not present there, path resolver 1006 may search for the storage node by processing the path or directory name beginning at the root. As shown in FIG. 11, virtual node 806E may communicate with virtual node 806R that manages the root directory via node resolution communications 1106. Virtual node 806R accesses its directory block map 1010R, which maps the path or directory name in the path name of command 1102 to a GUID and transmits the GUID to virtual node 806E. Path resolver 1006 at virtual node 806E continues working through the path or directory name, portion by portion, communicating with the virtual node managing each path portion to determine the corresponding DBID, until the entire path is traversed, and the storage node is determined. In an embodiment, path resolver 1006 communicates with the physical node that manages virtual node 1002 to determine the virtual node that owns the root directory and each determined GUID. The physical node may have access to master directory block table 700, which includes the mapping of all path portions to GUIDs, including root, and thus can find each virtual node that path resolver 1006 needs to communicate with based on the GUID determined from the prior virtual node. As described above, path resolver 1006 makes the communications with the various virtual nodes through the physical nodes managing them.

In step 1306, the command is forwarded to the determined storage node, the storage node having a directory block map containing an entry that maps the first file system object to an entity block identifier in the flat namespace. Path resolver 1006 is configured to forward the command to the storage node. For example, with reference to FIG. 11, virtual node 806E forwards forwarded command 1104 to virtual node 806B as forwarded command 1108. Virtual node 806B is identified as the storage node by virtual node 806E due to owning the DBID of the command path or directory name. Note that although not shown in FIG. 11, forwarded command 1108 is forwarded to virtual node 806B through one or more physical nodes. For example, with reference to FIGS. 8 and 11, forwarded command 1108 may be forwarded from physical node 802E managing virtual node 806E to physical node 802B managing virtual node 806B.

In step 1308, the entity block identifier and a timestamp are registered in a cache associated with the virtual node. In an embodiment, path resolver 1006 is configured to store the entity block identifier determined for the command in an entry in name resolution cache 1012, along with a timestamp, and the path name of the command. In this manner, when a future command is received that includes the path, path resolver 1006 can determine the storage node merely by reference to the entry in name resolution cache 1012. In an embodiment, path resolver 1006 may receive the entity block identifier from the storage node in a notification message and may store the entry in name resolution cache 1012 in response.

Note that entries in name resolution cache 1012 may timeout, and thus become invalid, after a predetermined amount of time passes from the timestamp value, such as one minute, one hour, or other time period. Furthermore, path resolver 1006 may receive an invalidate cache entry notification from the storage node for the entry in name resolution cache 1012, and in response, may indicate the entry as invalid. Similarly, path resolver 1006 may receive an invalidate cache entry notification from other virtual nodes that path resolver 1006 communicated with to resolve DBIDs for the path portions of the path name in the command, when any of those other virtual nodes determine the path portion they resolved has become invalid (e.g., due to a directory name change, etc.).

Furthermore, although all virtual nodes may be configured to resolve a name to a DBID as a name resolution node, having all virtual nodes performing the name resolution service may create a substantial number of invalidate cache messages for a directory rename command. For that reason, only a subset of the virtual nodes (e.g., 20%) may be enabled for name resolution. In an embodiment, the number of virtual nodes enabled for name resolution can dynamically change based on the ratio of name resolving requests and rename directory requests.

In an embodiment, a name resolution node may implement flowchart 1300 of FIG. 13 according to the following operations (where RS=read sequence number): (a) Transaction.RS=now( )−delta, if Transaction.RS=0; (b) Find in the local name resolution cache the DBID for the path name, such as “/path1/path2/”, and Transaction.RS if the file path is “/path1/path2/name”. If “/path1/path2” is not in the local name resolution cache, check for the presence of the leading path portion of the path name (e.g., “/path1” and so on) in the name resolution cache, which can be used to determine a DBID for at least a leading portion of the path name; (c) When the mapping between path and DBID is not in the local name resolution cache, send a path resolution request to the virtual node that manages the first portion of the path (e.g., the root virtual node or the virtual node managing a DBID determined for the path leading portion). The path resolving node returns the DBID for Transaction.RS, with the result being valid for RS+X seconds only. When the owner virtual node of the DBID changes the mapping, the owner virtual node notifies all nodes that cached the latest value in their name resolution path and the cached value has not expired; and (d) Send the command to the determined storage node, which owns the EBID to which the command is directed.

Flowchart 1400 of FIG. 14 is now described. Flowchart 1400 may be performed by a virtual node when operating as a storage node as described above. For instance, mapping manager 1008 of virtual node 1002 in FIG. 10 may operate according to flowchart 1400.

Flowchart 1400 begins with step 1402. In step 1402, a command regarding a first file system object is received from a name resolution node of the virtual nodes, the command indicating a name associated with the first file system object and a directory block identifier. As shown in FIG. 11, virtual node 806B receives forwarded command 1108 from virtual node 806E operating as a name resolution node.

In step 1404, an entry corresponding to the name and directory block identifier is interacted with in a directory block map associated with the virtual node according to the command. In an embodiment, mapping manager 1008 may maintain directory block map 1010, which be a table or have other form, that has entries (e.g., rows) corresponding directory blocks. For example, directory block map 1010 may include rows configured similarly to the rows of master directory block table 700. A name entry and directory block identifier (e.g., the GUID determined by the name resolution node for the last path portion) in forwarded command 1108 may be used by mapping manager 1008 as a row key to directory block map 1010 to determine a row with an entity block identifier to which the command is directed.

Mapping manager 1008 may interact with this determined entity block entry in any manner, depending on the type of command. For example, for a get-attributes command, mapping manager 1008 may determine one or more attributes in the entry requested by the command. For a command such as one of set-properties, create-file, delete-file, create-directory, and delete-directory, mapping manager 1008 may create a new entry in directory block map 1010 for a new version of the entity block, with or without attributes copied from the prior entry for the entity block identifier, but with a new commit time, and some attributes potentially modified (e.g., modifying any attributes specified in a set-properties command, setting the delete flag for a delete-file command, etc.).

Note that some commands such as move-file and move-directory may be performed as multiple commands. For example, the move-file command may be implemented by a create-file command and a delete-file command, where the create-file command creates a new entry for the entity block identifier in directory block map 1010 (of the same or a different virtual node, depending on the move destination) for the new directory block, and the delete-file command creates a new entity block identifier in directory block map 1010 (for the same virtual node) with the delete flag set. In such case, the query node may issue two or more commands to name resolution node(s) in sequence to have one or more storage nodes perform the commands to perform the overall command.

Referring back to FIG. 14, in step 1406, the name resolution node and a path name indicated in the command are registered in a registry associated with the virtual node. As described above, in an embodiment, mapping manager 1008 is configured to create an entry in name resolution node registry 1014 that associates the name resolution node (that forwarded the command to the storage node) with the path name in the forwarded command. The entry may further include a timestamp of creation of the entry. This entry in name resolution node registry 1014 enables the name resolution node to be notified in the event that the path name is changed, and thus the name resolution node should invalidate any entries in its name resolution cache 1012C associated with the path name (the full path name or any portion thereof).

In an embodiment, after a predetermined amount of time passes after the timestamp for an entry in name resolution node registry 1014, mapping manager 1008 may stop tracking that entry, and not send a notification to the name resolution node of that entry if the corresponding path becomes changed. This cutoff enables mapping manager 1008 to reduce its tracking load and reduce a number of notifications needing to be sent. The assumption is that the name resolution node will invalidate its own entries in its name resolution cache 1012 after a predetermined amount of time passes, and thus no longer needs the notifications from the storage node.

Referring back to FIG. 14, in step 1408, a query node of the virtual nodes is responded to regarding the command. In an embodiment, after the storage node performs the command in forwarded command 1108, the storage node provides an indication to the query node of the command completion. By responding directly to the query node, rather than responding to the query node through the name resolution node, a number of communication links is reduced.

With reference to the example of FIG. 11, virtual node 806B sends a command completion indication 1110 to virtual node 806A. Virtual node 806A may forward command completion indication 1110 through its physical node (physical node 802A) to the client that issued command. Note that although not shown in FIG. 11, command completion indication 1110 is forwarded to virtual node 806A through one or more physical nodes. For example, with reference to FIGS. 8 and 11, command completion indication 1110 may be sent from physical node 802B managing virtual node 806B to physical node 802A managing virtual node 806A.

The form of the indication of command completion depends on the particular command. For instance, for a get-properties command, the storage node may return the requested attributes. For commands such as set-properties, create-file, delete-file, create-directory, and delete-directory, the storage node may return a commit timestamp for the command.

Note that the storage node may determine the query node to which command completion indication 1110 is to be send in various ways. In one embodiment, command forwarder 1004 inserts an identifier for the query node when forwarding the command to the name resolution node, and the name resolution node forwards the query node identifier to the storage node. In another embodiment, command forwarder 1004 publishes an identifier for the query node in a data structure, such as a memory location, a file, a cache, etc., in association with the command. The data structure is accessible by the storage node to determine the query node associated with the command. In other embodiments, the storage node may determine the query node in other ways.

In step 1410, whether an indication is received that the path name changed is determined. As described above, path names can be changed due to operations such as move-directory, rename-directory, etc., that change any path portion of the path name. Such a path name change adversely impacts entries in name resolution caches for that path name, making them invalid. As such, the storage node monitors for commands containing operations that change path names, which may cause mapping manager 1008 to modify entries in its virtual node's directory block map 1010 regarding the path name, as well as notifying name resolution nodes registered for that path name (in name resolution node registry 1014) of the change.

As such, with reference to FIG. 8, if virtual node 806B (the storage node) receives no indications that the path name associated with forwarded command 1108 has changed, operation of flowchart 1400 ends after step 1410. However, if virtual node 806B receives an indication of a path name change, operation proceeds to step 1412.

In step 1412, notify the name resolution node that an entry in a cache of the resolution node associated with the path name is invalid in response to the indicated path name change. With reference to FIG. 11, virtual node 806B may modify directory block map 1010B according to the path name change (e.g., in a received command), and check name resolution node registry 1014B for name resolution nodes with entries associated with the path name, including virtual node 806E. Virtual node 806B transmits a notification to virtual node 806E of the path name change, which informs virtual node 806E to invalidate any entries in name resolution cache 1012C associated with the path name.

In an embodiment, a storage node may implement flowchart 1400 of FIG. 14 according to the following operations, for an example create-file command (where CS=commit sequence number): (a) Receive command Create-File for specified DBID and name, for example, “name”; (b) OCT1=now( ); Local commit timestamp; (c) Find an entry containing “name” for the specified DBID. First check for the name “name” in the local directory block map, and if not there, check the local name resolution node registry, or the master directory block table 700 (managed by the physical nodes); (d) If the last value for the entry is not indicated as deleted, abort the command; (e) Introduce a new entry for a new version for “name” with a state of Prepare and CS=OCT1, or abort transaction if: there is no transaction modifying “name” that has not committed yet and/or there is no transaction that started after Transaction.RS and has already committed; (f) Write the update to the name resolution node registry; (g) set OCT2=now( ); and (H) Return OCT2 as proposed commit timestamp to the query node.

Note that in an embodiment, mapping manager 1008 may further be configured to respond to the path name resolving requests received from path resolver 1006 at virtual nodes performing name resolution. For instance, mapping manager 1008 may receive a path portion from the name resolution, may search its virtual node's directory block map 1010 for the path portion (in name column 704), and return to the resolution node the corresponding DBID for that path portion. Virtual node 806R of FIG. 11, which manages the root directory, is described above as operating as a path resolving node for virtual node 806E functioning as the name resolution node, via node resolution communications 1106.

Accordingly, embodiments provide many advantages, including enabling file system operations to be performed on entity blocks by manipulating data in directory block maps rather than necessarily operating on the stored file system objects themselves. For example, as described above, a file system object in the hierarchical namespace may be identified at least by a path and a name. The path may be changed for the file system object in the hierarchical namespace. In embodiments, the path change causes a modification to an entry in at least one directory block map for an entity block identifier of an entity block corresponding to the file system object. The change in the directory block map(s) accounts for the path change, and therefore, the change does not cause a file or folder corresponding to the entity block to be moved in storage of the storage system. Changing an entry in a directory block map is a much less costly operation than actually moving files and/or folders in storage. This is particularly true when the entity block is a folder containing many files. If the folder is moved, this would lead to many move file operations for the contained files (with each move entailing a delete-file and a create-file operation). Embodiments avoid moving stored file system objects by instead making changes in data block maps.

B. Example Embodiments for Name Resolution Caching

As described above, a virtual node may be configured to resolve a directory name included in a hierarchical namespace identifier of a file system object (e.g., a path name) to a flat namespace identifier (e.g., a DBID) of the directory name, so that a command that includes the hierarchical namespace identifier can be forwarded to an appropriate storage node for execution against the flat namespace. As also described above, such a name resolution node may obtain the necessary name-to-DBID mapping through interaction with other virtual nodes (e.g., storage nodes), but afterward store the name-to-DBID mapping in a local name resolution cache so that subsequent name resolution operations can be performed more efficiently by that name resolution node. This concept of name resolution caching will now be further described with respect to an example embodiment of a name resolution node 1502 which is shown in FIG. 15.

As shown in FIG. 15, name resolution node 1502 includes a name resolver 1504, a command forwarder 1506, and a registration manager 1508. Each of these components may be implemented as program instructions stored in memory and executed by one or more processing circuits. Name resolution node 1502 is also operable to communicate with a name resolution cache 1512 and a registry 1514.

In an embodiment, name resolution node 1502 comprises one of virtual nodes 606 that is used to implement hierarchical namespace service 104 and thus may be executing on one of physical nodes 604 as discussed above with respect to FIG. 6. Likewise, name resolution node 1502 may comprise one of virtual nodes 806A, 806B or 806E that is used to implement hierarchical namespace service 800 and thus may be executing on one of physical nodes 802A, 802B, 802C, 802D or 802E as discussed above with respect to FIG. 8. Name resolution node 1502 may also be one implementation of virtual node 1002 as discussed above with respect to FIG. 10.

In accordance with each of these embodiments, name resolution cache 1512 and/or registry 1514 may be deemed “local” to name resolution node 1502 in the sense that it is stored in one or more memory devices within the physical node upon which name resolution node 1502 is executing. Accesses to these data structures by name resolution node 1502 may be facilitated by a hypervisor or other component that manages virtual node access to physical resources on the physical node. Thus, name resolution node 1502 need not communicate with any other physical nodes to access these data structures.

One manner of operation of name resolution node 1502 will now be described with respect to FIG. 16. In particular, FIG. 16 depicts a flowchart 1600 of a process by which a name resolution node resolves a directory name included in a hierarchical namespace identifier of a file system object to a flat namespace identifier, so that a command that includes the hierarchical namespace identifier can be forwarded to an appropriate storage node for execution against the flat namespace. Flowchart 1600 and name resolution node 1502 are described as follows. It is noted that, in an embodiment, steps 1602, 1604, 1606 and 1608 of flowchart 1600 are performed by name resolver 1504 and step 1610 is performed by command forwarder 1506.

The method of flowchart 1600 begins at step 1602, in which name resolver 1504 receives a file system command to be performed upon a file system object that is stored in a storage system having a flat namespace. The file system command includes a hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object. Furthermore, the hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object includes a directory name. For example, name resolver 1504 may receive the file system command Create(“/path1/file”). In this example, the hierarchical namespace identifier or path name of the file system object is “/path1/file” and the directory name or path included in the hierarchical namespace identifier is “/path1/”.

At step 1604, name resolver 1504 determines if the directory name is stored in an entry in a local cache. For example, name resolver 1504 may determine if the directory name “/path1/” is stored in an entry in name resolution cache 1512. Depending on the outcome of this step, name resolver 1504 either performs step 1606 or step 1608.

In one embodiment, name resolver 1504 is configured to determine if the directory name is stored in an entry in name resolution cache 1512 using a process depicted in flowchart 1700 of FIG. 17. In accordance with this embodiment, at step 1702 name resolver 1504 determines a timestamp associated with the file system command. For example, the timestamp may a timestamp that was assigned to the file system command by a client that generated the file system command or by a query node within the hierarchical namespace service that received it and forwarded it to name resolution node 1502. The timestamp may be sent along with or as part of the file system command. In step 1704, name resolver 1504 identifies one or more entries in the local cache that were valid at a time specified by the timestamp. At step 1706, name resolver 1504 only searches for the directory name in the identified one or more entries. For example, in an embodiment, each entry in the name resolution cache may comprise one or more versions or segments, wherein each version is located at a specified offset within the entry, and wherein each version corresponds to a time period when that version was valid. In accordance with such an embodiment, name resolver 1504 may utilize the timestamp associated with the file system command to determine an offset into an entry within name resolution cache at which to search for the relevant directory name. Such functionality advantageously enables file system commands to be executed against different versions of a file system object.

Returning now to the description of flowchart 1600, at step 1606, in response to determining that the directory name is stored in an entry in the local cache, name resolver 1504 obtains from the entry in the local cache an identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name. For example, in response to determining that the directory name “/path1/” is stored in an entry in name resolution cache 1512, name resolver 1504 may obtain from the entry in the local cache a DBID that corresponds to the directory name “/path1/”.

At step 1608, in response to determining that the directory name is not stored in an entry in the local cache, name resolver 1504 communicates with at least a second node to determine the identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name and creates an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name and the flat namespace identifier. For example, in response to determining that the directory name “/path1/” is not stored in an entry in name resolution cache 1512, name resolver 1504 may communicate with a storage node that manages the directory block map associated with the root node “/” to obtain a DBID that corresponds to the directory name “/path1/”. As was previously discussed, for directory names with many levels, name resolver 1504 may be required to communicate with multiple storage nodes to traverse those levels from the root downward until it identifies the storage node that can return the DBID that corresponds to the directory name. After obtaining the necessary mapping of directory name to DBID, name resolver 1504 stores such mapping in name resolution cache 1512 for future use.

At step 1610, command forwarder 1506 identifies a third node based on the identifier in the flat namespace and forwards the file system command to the third node for execution thereby. For example, command forwarder 1506 may identify a storage node based on the DBID corresponding to “/path1/” that was obtained in either step 1606 or step 1608 and forward the file system command Create(“/path1/file”) to the identified storage node. The storage node that is identified in this step may be one that is configured to manage a directory block that includes the directory name “/path1/” and comprises a partition of a namespace table that maps hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects to corresponding identifiers in the flat namespace and identifies relationships between file system objects in the flat namespace.

In one embodiment, command forwarder 1506 is configured to apply a hash function to the identifier in the flat namespace to identify the third node. For example, command forwarder 1506 may apply a hash function to the DBID corresponding to “/path1/” to identify a storage node having an identifier that matches the output of the hash function, although this is only an example.

As was previously mentioned, each of name resolution node 1502, the second node referred to in step 1608, and the third node referred to in step 1610 may comprise virtual nodes and may be executing upon a same or different physical node as the other virtual nodes.

In accordance with a further embodiment, registration manager 1508 is configured to perform operations that ensure that entries in name resolution cache 1512 are invalidated when directory names included in those entries are changed, e.g., due to a rename operation or an operation that changes access attributes associated with the relevant directory. In particular, registration manager 1508 may be configured to perform the steps of flowchart 1800 as shown in FIG. 18.

As shown in FIG. 18, the method of flowchart 1800 begins at step 1802 in which registration manager 1508 registers with at least the third node to receive a notification therefrom when a command is executed that modifies the directory name or modifies access attributes associated therewith. For example, in an embodiment, registration manager 1508 may register with the storage node identified in step 1610 of flowchart 1600 to which the command was forwarded (i.e., the storage node that manages the directory block map that includes the directory name “/path1/”) so that registration manager 1508 will receive a notification from that storage node should a command be executed that renames any part of the directory name “/path1/” or that modifies access attributes associated with any portion of that directory name.

In step 1804, in response to receiving such a notification from the third node, registration manager 1508 invalidates an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name. For example, in an embodiment, registration manager 1508 invalidates an entry in name resolution cache 1512 that includes the directory name “/path1/” in response to receiving a notification from the storage node that manages the directory block map that includes the directory name “/path1/”, wherein such notification indicates that a command has been executed that renames any part of the directory name “/path1/” or that modifies access attributes associated with any portion of that directory name. In an embodiment, invalidating the cache entry comprises not deleting the cache entry but instead marking a time within the cache after which the cache entry is deemed invalid.

In certain embodiments, the third node (i.e., the storage node that manages the directory block map that includes “/path1/”) may be configured to honor the registration for only a predetermined time period (e.g., one minute, one hour, two hours, etc.). After the expiration of the predetermined time period, the third node will not send any notifications to name resolution node 1502, even if a command is executed that renames a part of the directory name “/path1/” or modifies access attributes associated with a portion of that directory name. In further accordance with such an embodiment, registration manager 1508 is configured to invalidate the entry in name resolution cache 1512 that includes the directory name “/path1/” upon or before expiration of the same predetermined time period. This has the effect of ensuring that cache entries are invalidated when there is no notification mechanism in place to ensure that they are valid.

Also, this approach provides for increased efficiency. Entries in a name resolution cache may expire naturally because they are not read for some time. This may be a very common occurrence. After this point, in accordance with the foregoing approach there is no need to send notifications. For example, assume that an entry was created in the cache at time X and cache expiry is set to occur at X+10 minutes if the cache entry is not read. Furthermore, assume that the cache entry is never read, so it expires at X+10 minutes. In this case, if a directory associated with the entry is renamed at X+30 minutes, the storage node does not need to notify the name resolution node because the cache entry has already expired. Thus, this approach reduces the amount of inter-node messaging that must occur. Even in the case where a cache entry must be explicitly invalidated, only the name resolution node(s) that manage such a cache entry need be notified.

Note that, in embodiments, the expiry of the cache entry is set to an amount of time that is less than the registration retention time with the storage node to avoid inconsistencies.

As was previously discussed, a file system command such as Create (“/path1/file1”) may be routed or forwarded to name resolution node 1502 from a query node, which may comprise another virtual node within the hierarchical namespace service. The query node may be configured to receive the file system command from a client (e.g., application 220), identify name resolution node 1502 from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name included in the command, and by forwarding the file system command to name resolution node 1502 based upon the identification thereof. For example, the query node may receive the file system command Create (“/path1/file1/”) from a client and apply a CRC64 algorithm or other suitable hash function to the directory name “/path1/” to obtain a hashing result. The query node may then identify name resolution node 1502 because it has an identifier that matches the hashing result. The query node may then forward the file system command to name resolution node 1502. This technique has the effect of sending all the requests for resolving the same path name to the same name resolution node. If the same name resolution node resolves the path name to the DBID, fewer virtual nodes will register for notifications. Furthermore, this approach improves the effectiveness of the name resolution caching by increasing the likelihood of cache hits.

In another embodiment, the query node may be configured to receive the file system command from a client (e.g., application 220), identify a particular name resolution node from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name included in the command, and by forwarding the file system command to particular name resolution node based upon the identification thereof. However, in this example, the query node may receive a response or other indication from the particular name resolution node that the name resolution node is busy. In this case, the transaction may add a predetermined value (e.g., 1) to the result of the hash function or perform some other operation to identify name resolution node 1502 and then forward the file system command to name resolution node 1502 based upon the identification thereof. An approach that always selects the same next name resolution node will tend to improve the benefits of name resolution caching by increasing the likelihood of cache hits.

Accordingly, a hierarchical namespace service in accordance with an embodiment may include any number of name resolution nodes (and associated name resolution caches) for resolving a directory name. As one or more of these name resolution nodes become busy, commands that include the directory name can be directed to other ones of the name resolution nodes for that directory. This horizontal scalability can be used to improve the efficiency of the name resolution function when such name resolution nodes become busy. For example, in an embodiment, the number of name resolution nodes assigned to a particular directory may be increased or reduced dynamically and adaptively based on how many file operations are occurring in association with the directory. In this manner, a relatively large number of name resolution nodes (and associated name resolution caches) may be assigned to a directory that is hot/active, whereas a relatively small number (e.g., 1) may be assigned to a directory that is not.

Accordingly, the foregoing describes a system for implementing a hierarchical namespace service that includes a plurality of query nodes, a plurality of name resolution nodes, and a plurality of storage nodes. Each of the plurality of query nodes is configured to receive file system commands and to forward file system commands that include a same directory name in a hierarchical namespace to a same name resolution node in a plurality of name resolution nodes. Each of the plurality of name resolution nodes is configured to receive the file system commands from the plurality of query nodes, resolve the directory names included therein to identifiers in a flat namespace of a storage system, identify storage nodes within a plurality of storage nodes based on the identifiers in the flat namespace, and forward the file system commands to the identified storage nodes for execution thereby. Each of the name resolution nodes is further configured to attempt to resolve the directory names included in the file system commands first from a name resolution cache maintained thereby, and if the directory names cannot be resolved from the name resolution cache, to resolve the path names by communicating with one or more of the storage nodes. In one exemplary and non-limiting embodiment of such a system, each of the query nodes, the name resolution nodes, and the storage nodes comprises a virtual node, and each of the virtual nodes is executing upon a same or different physical node as the other virtual nodes.

III. Example Computer System Implementation

Namespace service 104, storage system 202, location service 204, DNS 206, storage clusters 208A and 208B, front end layers 210A and 210B, partition layers 212A and 212B, stream layers 214A and 214B, namespace services 216A and 216B, computing device 218, master table service 602, physical nodes 604, virtual nodes 606, physical nodes 802A-802E, virtual nodes 806A, 806B, 806E, and 806R, virtual node 1002, command forwarder 1004, path resolver 1006, mapping manager 1008, hash generator 1010, name resolution node 1502, name resolver 1504, command forwarder 1506, registration manager 1508, flowchart 900, flowchart 1200, flowchart 1300, flowchart 1400, flowchart 1600, flowchart 1700, and flowchart 1800 may be implemented in hardware, or hardware combined with one or both of software and/or firmware, such as being implemented as computer program code/instructions stored in a physical/hardware-based computer readable storage medium and configured to be executed in one or more processors, or being implemented as hardware logic/electrical circuitry (e.g., electrical circuits comprised of transistors, logic gates, operational amplifiers, one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), one or more field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)). For instance, in an embodiment, one or more of namespace service 104, location service 204, DNS 206, front end layers 210A and 210B, partition layers 212A and 212B, stream layers 214A and 214B, namespace services 216A and 216B, computing device 218, master table service 602, physical nodes 604, virtual nodes 606, physical nodes 802A-802E, virtual nodes 806A, 806B, 806E, and 806R, virtual node 1002, command forwarder 1004, path resolver 1006, mapping manager 1008, hash generator 1010, name resolution node 1502, name resolver 1504, command forwarder 1506, registration manager 1508, flowchart 900, flowchart 1200, flowchart 1300, flowchart 1400, flowchart 1600, flowchart 1700, and/or flowchart 1800 may be implemented separately or together in a SoC. The SoC may include an integrated circuit chip that includes one or more of a processor (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), microcontroller, microprocessor, digital signal processor (DSP), etc.), memory, one or more communication interfaces, and/or further circuits, and may optionally execute received program code and/or include embedded firmware to perform functions. Note that electronic circuits such as ASICs and FPGAs may be used to accelerate various computations such as checksums, hashing, encryption, compression, etc.

FIG. 19 depicts an example processor-based computer system 1900 that may be used to implement various embodiments described herein, including computing device 218, location service 204, DNS 206, physical nodes 604, 802A-802E, and 1502, etc. System 1900 may also be used to implement any or all the steps of flowcharts 900, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1600, 1700, and 1800. The description of system 1900 provided herein is provided for purposes of illustration and is not intended to be limiting. Embodiments may be implemented in further types of computer systems, as would be known to persons skilled in the relevant art(s).

As shown in FIG. 19, system 1900 includes a processing unit 1902, a system memory 1904, and a bus 1906 that couples various system components including system memory 1904 to processing unit 1902. Processing unit 1902 may comprise one or more microprocessors or microprocessor cores. Bus 1906 represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. System memory 1904 includes read only memory (ROM) 1908 and random-access memory (RAM) 1910. A basic input/output system 1912 (BIOS) is stored in ROM 1908.

System 1900 also has one or more of the following drives: a hard disk drive 1914 for reading from and writing to a hard disk, a magnetic disk drive 1916 for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk 1918, and an optical disk drive 1920 for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk 1922 such as a CD ROM, DVD ROM, BLU-RAY™ disk or other optical media. Hard disk drive 1914, magnetic disk drive 1916, and optical disk drive 1920 are connected to bus 1906 by a hard disk drive interface 1924, a magnetic disk drive interface 1926, and an optical drive interface 1928, respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide nonvolatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer. Although a hard disk, a removable magnetic disk and a removable optical disk are described, other types of computer-readable memory devices and storage structures can be used to store data, such as flash memory cards, digital video disks, random access memories (RAMs), read only memories (ROM), and the like.

A number of program modules or components may be stored on the hard disk, magnetic disk, optical disk, ROM, or RAM. These program modules include an operating system 1930, one or more application programs 1932, other program modules 1934, and program data 1936. In accordance with various embodiments, the program modules may include computer program logic that is executable by processing unit 1902 to perform any or all the functions and features of system 100 of FIG. 1 and system 300 of FIG. 3 as described above. The program modules may also include computer program logic that, when executed by processing unit 1902, implement namespace service 104, location service 204, DNS 206, front end layers 210A and 210B, partition layers 212A and 212B, stream layers 214A and 214B, namespace services 216A and 216B, computing device 218, master table service 602, virtual nodes 606, virtual nodes 806A, 806B, 806E, and 806R, virtual node 1002, command forwarder 1004, path resolver 1006, mapping manager 1008, hash generator 1010, name resolution node 1502, name resolver 1504, command forwarder 1506, registration manager 1508, flowchart 900, flowchart 1200, flowchart 1300, flowchart 1400, flowchart 1600, flowchart 1700, and/or flowchart 1800 (and any one or more steps of flowcharts 900, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1600, 1700, and 1800).

A user may enter commands and information into system 1900 through input devices such as a keyboard 1938 and a pointing device 1940. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game controller, scanner, or the like. In one embodiment, a touch screen is provided in conjunction with a display 1944 to allow a user to provide user input via the application of a touch (as by a finger or stylus for example) to one or more points on the touch screen. These and other input devices are often connected to processing unit 1902 through a serial port interface 1942 that is coupled to bus 1906, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port, or a universal serial bus (USB). Such interfaces may be wired or wireless interfaces.

A display 1944 is also connected to bus 1906 via an interface, such as a video adapter 1946. In addition to display 1944, system 1900 may include other peripheral output devices (not shown) such as speakers and printers.

System 1900 is connected to a network 1948 (e.g., a local area network or wide area network such as the Internet) through a network interface or adapter 1950, a modem 1952, or other suitable means for establishing communications over the network. Modem 1952, which may be internal or external, is connected to bus 1906 via serial port interface 1942. As used herein, the terms “computer program medium,” “computer-readable medium,” and “computer-readable storage medium” are used to generally refer to memory devices or storage structures such as the hard disk associated with hard disk drive 1914, removable magnetic disk 1918, removable optical disk 1922, as well as other memory devices or storage structures such as flash memory cards, digital video disks, random access memories (RAMs), read only memories (ROM), and the like. Such computer-readable storage media are distinguished from and non-overlapping with communication media (do not include communication media). Communication media typically embodies computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Embodiments are also directed to such communication media.

As noted above, computer programs and modules (including application programs 1932 and other program modules 1934) may be stored on the hard disk, magnetic disk, optical disk, ROM, or RAM. Such computer programs may also be received via network interface 1950, serial port interface 1942, or any other interface type. Such computer programs, when executed or loaded by an application, enable system 1900 to implement features of embodiments of the present methods and systems described herein. Accordingly, such computer programs represent controllers of the system 1900.

Embodiments are also directed to computer program products comprising software stored on any computer useable medium. Such software, when executed in one or more data processing devices, causes a data processing device(s) to operate as described herein. Embodiments of the present methods and systems employ any computer-useable or computer-readable medium, known now or in the future. Examples of computer-readable mediums include but are not limited to memory devices and storage structures such as RAM, hard drives, floppy disks, CD ROMs, DVD ROMs, zip disks, tapes, magnetic storage devices, optical storage devices, MEMs, nanotechnology-based storage devices, and the like.

IV. Additional Exemplary Embodiments

A system for providing a hierarchical namespace service is described herein that includes a first node. The first node includes a name resolver and a command forwarder.

The name resolver is configured to receive a file system command to be performed upon a file system object that is stored in a storage system having a flat namespace, the file system command including a hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object, the hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object including a directory name. The name resolver is further configured to determine if the directory name is stored in an entry in a local cache. The name resolver is still further configured to, in response to determining that the directory name is stored in an entry in the local cache, obtain from the entry in the local cache an identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name. The name resolver is still further configured to, in response to determining that the directory name is not stored in an entry in the local cache, communicate with at least a second node to determine the identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name and create an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name and the flat namespace identifier.

The command forwarder is configured to identify a third node based on the identifier in the flat namespace and to forward the file system command to the third node for execution thereby.

In one embodiment of the foregoing system, each of the first node, the second node and the third node comprises a virtual node, and each of the virtual nodes is executing upon a same or different physical node as the other virtual nodes.

In another embodiment of the foregoing system, the system further includes a fourth node that is configured to receive the file system command from a client, identify the first node from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name, and forward the file system command to the first node based upon the identification thereof.

In yet another embodiment of the foregoing system, the system further includes a fourth node that is configured to receive the file system command from a client, identify a fifth node from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name, forward the file system command to the fifth node based upon the identification thereof, receive a response from the fifth node that indicates that the fifth node is busy, and in response to receiving the indication that the fifth node is busy: add a predetermined value to the result of the hash function to identify the first node and forward the file system command to the first node based upon the identification thereof.

In still another embodiment of the foregoing system, the command forwarder is configured to apply a hash function to the identifier in the flat namespace to identify the third node.

In a further embodiment of the foregoing system, the third node is configured to manage a directory block that includes the directory name and comprises a partition of a namespace table that maps hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects to corresponding identifiers in the flat namespace and identifies relationships between file system objects in the flat namespace.

In a still further embodiment of the foregoing system, the first node further comprises a registration manager that is configured to register with at least the third node to receive a notification therefrom when a command is executed that modifies the directory name or modifies access attributes associated therewith and invalidate an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name when the notification is received.

In another embodiment of the foregoing system, the third node is configured to honor the registration for only a predetermined time period and the registration manager is configured to invalidate the entry in the local cache that includes the directory name upon expiration of the predetermined time period.

In yet another embodiment of the foregoing system, the name resolver is configured to determine if the directory name is stored in an entry in the local cache by determining a timestamp associated with the file system command, identifying one or more entries in the local cache that were valid at a time specified by the timestamp, and only searching for the directory name in the identified one or more entries.

A method is also described herein that is performed by a first node in a system that implements a hierarchical namespace service. The method includes: receiving a file system command to be performed upon a file system object that is stored in a storage system having a flat namespace, the file system command including a hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object, the hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object including a directory name; determining if the directory name is stored in an entry in a local cache; in response to determining that the directory name is stored in an entry in the local cache, obtaining from the entry in the local cache an identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name; in response to determining that the directory name is not stored in an entry in the local cache, communicating with at least a second node to determine the identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name and creating an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name and the flat namespace identifier; identifying a third node based on the identifier in the flat namespace; and forwarding the file system command to the third node for execution.

In accordance with one embodiment of the foregoing method, each one of the first node, the second node and the third node comprises a virtual node, and each of the virtual nodes is executing upon a same or different physical node as the other virtual nodes.

In accordance with another embodiment of the foregoing method, receiving the file system command comprises: receiving the file system command from a fourth node that receives the file system command from a client, identifies the first node from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name, and forwards the file system command to the first node based upon the identification thereof.

In accordance with yet another embodiment of the foregoing method, receiving the file system command comprises: receiving the file system command from a fourth node that receives the file system command from a client, identifies a fifth node from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name, forwards the file system command to the fifth node based upon the identification thereof, receives a response from the fifth node that indicates that the fifth node is busy, and in response to receiving the indication that the fifth node is busy, adds a predetermined value to the result of the hash function to identify the first node and forwards the file system command to the first node based upon the identification thereof.

In accordance with still another embodiment of the foregoing method, identifying the third node based on the identifier in the flat namespace comprises applying a hash function to the identifier in the flat namespace to identify the third node.

In accordance with a further embodiment of the foregoing method, forwarding the file system command to the third node comprises forwarding the file system command to a node that is configured to manage a directory block that includes the directory name and comprises a partition of a namespace table that maps hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects to corresponding identifiers in the flat namespace and identifies relationships between file system objects in the flat namespace.

In accordance with a still further embodiment of the foregoing method, the method further includes: registering with at least the third node to receive a notification therefrom when a command is executed that modifies the directory name or modifies access attributes associated therewith; and invalidating an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name when the notification is received.

In accordance with another embodiment of the foregoing method, the method further includes: registering with at least the third node to receive for a limited time period a notification therefrom when a command is executed that modifies the directory name or modifies access attributes associated therewith; and invalidating an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name when the limited time period expires.

In accordance with yet another embodiment of the foregoing method, determining if the directory name is stored in an entry in the local cache comprises: determining a timestamp associated with the file system command; identifying one or more entries in the local cache that were valid at a time specified by the timestamp; and only searching for the directory name in the identified one or more entries.

A system for implementing a hierarchical namespace server, is also described herein. The system includes a plurality of query nodes, a plurality of name resolution nodes and a plurality of storage nodes. Each one of the plurality of query nodes is configured to receive file system commands and to forward file system commands that include a same directory name in a hierarchical namespace to a same name resolution node in a plurality of name resolution nodes. Each one of the plurality of name resolution nodes is configured to receive the file system commands from the plurality of query nodes, resolve the directory names included therein to identifiers in a flat namespace of a storage system, identify storage nodes within a plurality of storage nodes based on the identifiers in the flat namespace, and forward the file system commands to the identified storage nodes for execution thereby. Each one of the name resolution nodes is further configured to attempt to resolve the directory names included in the file system commands first from a name resolution cache maintained thereby, and if the directory names cannot be resolved from the name resolution cache, to resolve the path names by communicating with one or more of the storage nodes.

In one embodiment of the foregoing system, each one of the query nodes, the name resolution nodes, and the storage nodes comprises a virtual node, and each of the virtual nodes is executing upon a same or different physical node as the other virtual nodes.

V. Conclusion

While various embodiments of the present methods and systems have been described above, they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. It will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art that various changes in form and detail can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the methods and systems. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present methods and systems should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments but should be defined only in accordance with the following claims and their equivalents. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for providing a hierarchical namespace service, comprising: a first node, comprising: a name resolver that is configured to: receive a file system command to be performed upon a file system object that is stored in a storage system having a flat namespace, the file system command including a hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object, the hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object including a directory name; determine if the directory name is stored in an entry in a local cache; in response to determining that the directory name is stored in an entry in the local cache, obtain from the entry in the local cache an identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name; and in response to determining that the directory name is not stored in an entry in the local cache, communicate with at least a second node to determine the identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name and create an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name and the flat namespace identifier; and a command forwarder that is configured to identify a third node based on the identifier in the flat namespace and to forward the file system command to the third node for execution thereby.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein each one of the first node, the second node and the third node comprises a virtual node, and wherein each of the virtual nodes is executing upon a same or different physical node as the other virtual nodes.
 3. The system of claim 1, further comprising: a fourth node that is configured to: receive the file system command from a client; identify the first node from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name; and forward the file system command to the first node based upon the identification thereof.
 4. The system of claim 1, further comprising: a fourth node that is configured to: receive the file system command from a client; identify a fifth node from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name; forward the file system command to the fifth node based upon the identification thereof; receive a response from the fifth node that indicates that the fifth node is busy; and in response to receiving the indication that the fifth node is busy: add a predetermined value to the result of the hash function to identify the first node; and forward the file system command to the first node based upon the identification thereof.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the command forwarder is configured to apply a hash function to the identifier in the flat namespace to identify the third node.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the third node is configured to manage a directory block that includes the directory name and comprises a partition of a namespace table that maps hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects to corresponding identifiers in the flat namespace and identifies relationships between file system objects in the flat namespace.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the first node further comprises: a registration manager that is configured to: register with at least the third node to receive a notification therefrom when a command is executed that modifies the directory name or modifies access attributes associated therewith; and invalidate an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name when the notification is received.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein the third node is configured to honor the registration for only a predetermined time period; and wherein the registration manager is configured to invalidate the entry in the local cache that includes the directory name upon expiration of the predetermined time period.
 9. The system of claim 1, wherein the name resolver is configured to determine if the directory name is stored in an entry in the local cache by: determining a timestamp associated with the file system command; identifying one or more entries in the local cache that were valid at a time specified by the timestamp; and only searching for the directory name in the identified one or more entries.
 10. A method performed by a first node in a system that implements a hierarchical namespace service, the method comprising: receiving a file system command to be performed upon a file system object that is stored in a storage system having a flat namespace, the file system command including a hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object, the hierarchical namespace identifier of the file system object including a directory name; determining if the directory name is stored in an entry in a local cache; in response to determining that the directory name is stored in an entry in the local cache, obtaining from the entry in the local cache an identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name; in response to determining that the directory name is not stored in an entry in the local cache, communicating with at least a second node to determine the identifier in the flat namespace that corresponds to the directory name and creating an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name and the flat namespace identifier; identifying a third node based on the identifier in the flat namespace; and forwarding the file system command to the third node for execution.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein each one of the first node, the second node and the third node comprises a virtual node, and wherein each of the virtual nodes is executing upon a same or different physical node as the other virtual nodes.
 12. The method of claim 10, wherein receiving the file system command comprises: receiving the file system command from a fourth node that receives the file system command from a client, identifies the first node from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name, and forwards the file system command to the first node based upon the identification thereof.
 13. The method of claim 10, wherein receiving the file system command comprises: receiving the file system command from a fourth node that receives the file system command from a client, identifies a fifth node from among a plurality of nodes in the system by applying a hash function to the directory name, forwards the file system command to the fifth node based upon the identification thereof, receives a response from the fifth node that indicates that the fifth node is busy, and in response to receiving the indication that the fifth node is busy, adds a predetermined value to the result of the hash function to identify the first node and forwards the file system command to the first node based upon the identification thereof.
 14. The method of claim 10, wherein identifying the third node based on the identifier in the flat namespace comprises applying a hash function to the identifier in the flat namespace to identify the third node.
 15. The method of claim 10, wherein forwarding the file system command to the third node comprises forwarding the file system command to a node that is configured to manage a directory block that includes the directory name and comprises a partition of a namespace table that maps hierarchical namespace identifiers of file system objects to corresponding identifiers in the flat namespace and identifies relationships between file system objects in the flat namespace.
 16. The method of claim 10, further comprising: registering with at least the third node to receive a notification therefrom when a command is executed that modifies the directory name or modifies access attributes associated therewith; and invalidating an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name when the notification is received.
 17. The method of claim 10, further comprising: registering with at least the third node to receive for a limited time period a notification therefrom when a command is executed that modifies the directory name or modifies access attributes associated therewith; and invalidating an entry in the local cache that includes the directory name when the limited time period expires.
 18. The method of claim 10, wherein determining if the directory name is stored in an entry in the local cache comprises: determining a timestamp associated with the file system command; identifying one or more entries in the local cache that were valid at a time specified by the timestamp; and only searching for the directory name in the identified one or more entries.
 19. A system for implementing a hierarchical namespace server, comprising: a plurality of query nodes, each of which is configured to receive file system commands and to forward file system commands that include a same directory name in a hierarchical namespace to a same name resolution node in a plurality of name resolution nodes; the plurality of name resolution nodes, each of which is configured to receive the file system commands from the plurality of query nodes, resolve the directory names included therein to identifiers in a flat namespace of a storage system, identify storage nodes within a plurality of storage nodes based on the identifiers in the flat namespace, and forward the file system commands to the identified storage nodes for execution thereby; and the plurality of storage nodes; wherein each of the name resolution nodes is further configured to attempt to resolve the directory names included in the file system commands first from a name resolution cache maintained thereby, and if the directory names cannot be resolved from the name resolution cache, to resolve the path names by communicating with one or more of the storage nodes.
 20. The system of claim 19, wherein each one of the query nodes, the name resolution nodes, and the storage nodes comprises a virtual node, and wherein each of the virtual nodes is executing upon a same or different physical node as the other virtual nodes. 